Colorado's pitchers walk tightrope, but secure Rockies' first series win in Arizona since '22

PHOENIX -- The Rockies repeatedly pitched themselves into trouble Wednesday afternoon. They just kept pitching themselves right back out of it.

Despite issuing 10 walks and loading the bases in three straight innings, Colorado held off the Diamondbacks, 6-4, to earn its first series victory in Arizona since July 2022.

“Obviously with 10 walks, that’s not how we want to approach things,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said. “But grinding out of those situations and making pitches when we had to to get the win -- that’s a big deal.”

The afternoon became an exercise in resilience for a Rockies club that found itself walking a tightrope almost from the middle innings onward. Colorado built an early five-run cushion behind a pair of home runs, only to spend the rest of the game watching Arizona repeatedly threaten to erase it.

After the D-backs grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first, Colorado answered with four runs in the second. Catcher Brett Sullivan delivered the biggest blow, driving a three-run homer that clanged off the right-field foul pole, and Zac Veen -- making his first Major League appearance since 2025 after earning a call up from Triple-A Albuquerque -- added a Statcast-projected 407-foot, two-run homer into the Chase Field pool in right-center field in the fourth to stretch Colorado's lead to 6-1. Five of the Rockies’ six runs on the day came via the long ball.

“It was huge,” Schaeffer said of Veen’s return. “It just seems like he’s in such a better place coming up this time than he did last [season]. He already feels like part of the group. I thought he had good swings, I thought he played well, and I thought he looked comfortable out there. I thought he looked the part.”

Sullivan’s home run was memorable for another reason. It was the first foul-pole homer of his career.

“Usually, they go foul,” Sullivan said with a smile. “I was just watching it and praying, ‘Stay fair, please.’ We got lucky there. We’ll take that kind of luck any time.”

Starter Ryan Feltner was in command for much of the afternoon, retiring nine of 11 hitters after allowing an opening-inning run. But the game changed quickly once Colorado’s command struggles began. After issuing just one walk through the first four innings, Rockies pitchers handed out nine more the rest of the way, creating a string of high-pressure situations.

The D-backs loaded the bases in the fifth after Gabriel Moreno’s RBI-double and consecutive walks to Lars Nootbaar and Ketel Marte. With former Rockie Nolan Arenado -- who opened the series with a grand slam Monday -- representing the tying run at the plate, Feltner induced an inning-ending groundout to keep Colorado in front, 6-2.

The sixth brought even more drama. Parker Mushinski loaded the bases before Schaeffer summoned Juan Mejía from the bullpen to face Moreno.

What followed was one of the day’s most unusual moments.

Moreno successfully challenged two called strikes to extend the at-bat before Sullivan asked for a challenge himself on a pitch ruled a ball for the third ABS challenge in the sequence. Replay overturned the call to strike three, ending the inning with the bases still loaded and preserving Colorado’s four-run lead.

Arizona kept coming. The D-backs loaded the bases for a third consecutive inning in the seventh before Jimmy Herget entered and limited the damage, and then mounted another threat in the eighth when Arenado came to the plate as the potential go-ahead run. Veteran left-hander Brennan Bernardino answered the challenge, inducing an inning-ending groundout to send the Rockies to the ninth still protecting a two-run lead.

By the end of the game, Arizona left 15 runners on base, as the Rockies balanced control issues on a tense day for the basepaths and coming through in the clutch to overcome threat after threat.

It wasn’t a masterpiece on the mound, but it was a gutty one.

“Good teams -- when that happens -- they get out of those situations, and that’s what we did today,” Sullivan said. “From a pitching aspect, you can look at it two ways. I’m looking at it as a huge step for us, getting out of those jams and keeping the lead.”

After a day off Thursday, the Rockies open a three-game series in San Francisco on Friday before returning home from their longest road trip of the season to host the Dodgers starting Monday.